


“Nanné Maranno, Third Handmaiden in the Second Class for Padmé Amidala”

by Polgarawolf



Series: Star Wars: You Became to Me [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/F, F/M, Handmaidens, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Sacrificial ethics, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-02
Updated: 2007-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:13:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polgarawolf/pseuds/Polgarawolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is fifteen random but chronological moments from the life of Nanné Maranno, who is, quite literally, the third handmaiden in the second training class of potential handmaidens chosen from among a large pool of applicants for the job for the newly elected Nabooian Queen Padmé Amidala. There is an actual story here – one small thread among the vast woven tapestry of life that is the living history of the galaxy, stretched out and twisted, knotted into the whole, curled down among the roots of time, connecting various moments together – but one must read between the lines to capture it. It is not precisely the truth, for the subtle story of these moments is sketched out here in words, and, in the sin of writing down a life, it inevitably changes the shape of things. But it is nevertheless a form of truth. (From a certain point of view . . . )</p>
            </blockquote>





	“Nanné Maranno, Third Handmaiden in the Second Class for Padmé Amidala”

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** This story functions as a sort of compressed codex for Nanné Maranno’s life, as she is going to be written (or at least referred to) in my not even nearly complete AU **Star Wars** series **_You Became to Me_**. If anything doesn’t make sense, please feel free to ask!
> 
>  **Author’s Notes: 1.)** Again, for anyone interested, this not-quite-a-story is compatible with my SW AU series **_You Became to Me_** , including the trilogy _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ , if you squint at a couple of things sideways and view a few others solely through the lens of Nanné Maranno’s eyes. **2.)** Although this is technically modeled on a prompt set that I borrowed from somewhere or another on the LJ (I really don’t recall from where anymore, precisely, though if someone would like to set the record straight, I’ll add the info for the community in question here in my notes), it’s not really meant to function as a response to whatever the challenge actually is that’s associated with said LJ prompt set. I just used the specific prompts to give me a reason to string together a backstory of sorts for Nanné. **3.)** Readers might want to consider the fact that Nanné, like a lot of native Nabooians, is fairly strong in the Force, but that she hasn’t received any training whatsoever to speak of and so has no real conscious control over that sensitivity to the Force. **4.)** Readers interested in knowing who the physical models are for original characters like Nanné should please consult the latest versions of my posted lists of cast original and EU characters and for handmaid(en)s and other important Nabooian characters, which are available on my LJ! For clarity’s sake, though, please keep in mind that Nanné is physically modeled on a teenaged Vanessa Marano, and Nanné Maranno’s parents, Belluna and Sammase Marano, should be pictured as Rob Lowe and Vanessa Britting, while Gwené Maranno’s parents, Lucidé and Darniss Maranno, should be pictured as Eric Close and Vanessa Britting. Please note that characters who may be alluded to but not referenced by name (certain family members of original characters, for example) are considered too minor to be cast at this time, and readers should feel free to imagine them howsoever they wish! **5.)** Handmaidens often tend to pair off (and Nanné is aware of several such pairings, which is why I've added a relationship label for original female characters and the underage warning), but in this case Nanné never really sees the need for a partner while she has her cousin’s friendship and keeps herself too busy for anyone to really court her. **6.)** Speaking of pairings, I've labeled this to indicate both Padmé Amidala's and Sabé's love for Obi-Wan, because, even though it may not be specifically mentioned in this character study piece, handmaid(en)s know so much about their sworn Lady that readers can be certain that Nanné, like all of Amidala's other handmaid(en)s who knew him (or knew of him), would have surely known about both their Lady's and Sabé's love and high regard for Obi-Wan, just as they would have known about how much Amidala and Sabé love one another!
> 
>  **Story Notes:** **1.)** Since this is part of a larger on-going AU series that in some respects fairly closely mirrors or follows events of canon (up to a certain point, anyway), readers should please keep in mind that certain characters and events from the prequel movies/novelizations of the films and even events/places/people referenced in the EU or Expanded Universe may be mentioned or alluded to in this story. If anyone has any questions about whether someone or something is AU, canon, or EU canon, please feel free to ask! **2.)** Readers should probably be aware that I am roughly estimating (guestimating might be a better word) the original publication date for most of the character study pieces in the **_You Became to Me_** series (and indeed most of my stories, especially the ones written over a long period of time), based on when I roughed out notes for them in the story notebooks I carry everywhere with me and when I can recall having worked on certain groups of characters. The year is going to be accurate, but the month might be off and the day will almost certainly be randomly chosen, since the online account I had originally posted many of these stories to no longer exists. I tend to go back and edit things that are in series whenever I get the time or a new idea causes me to have to make room for something else plot-wise, and odds are good that a story could have been edited for typos as recently as the day of its posting here, but the original version will likely be much older and fairly close to the publication date that I attach to it, if anyone's curious!

**“Nanné Maranno, Handmaiden in the Second Class for Padmé Amidala”**

 

 **01.) Mistaken:** She’s often mistaken for the sister of her first cousin, Gwené, when they are out and about together – unsurprisingly, considering that their mothers are identical twins who married a pair of fraternal twin brothers who resemble each other to a certain extent, the two of them resemble each other a great deal, physically – and Gwené assures her that, when they’re a bit older and her face has lost the rest of its baby fat softness, like Nanné’s already has, they’ll look enough alike to be able to pass as twins, if they want to; Nanné knows that Gwené is the truly special one, though, the one who’s a real prodigy and not just quite a bit cleverer than most, and so she takes great pains to protect Gwené as much as she can and to encourage her in her work as much as possible, because she’s determined to see Gwené, at least, go places in life.

 **02.) Family:** Their two families both straddle the line between the upper middle class and the traditional (if never exactly named outright as an actual aristocracy) nobility, and there is little to nothing that they ever go in want of, but there’s such an emphasis on marriage as an alliance of families and fortunes and the need to ensure the family’s prosperity and growth by marrying well (and, hopefully, young, and a little bit higher than the family’s current standing) that she often feels stifled and weighed down by all of that comfort and privilege and expectation, even though she is the second of three daughters and her eldest sister has technically already sworn to accept the suit of a slightly higher born boy from Kaadara (whom she met because he was sent to Theed for his education), and the pressure on her is therefore somewhat less than it might otherwise be.

 **03.) Chaperone:** Auntie Lucidé pays for Gwené’s expensive books and extracurricular activities at the prestigious Royal Academy (which only accepts those young nobles and scholarship winners who have demonstrated interest and ability in the field of politics, social leadership, and social responsibility) because she believes Gwené will meet a good match there, and she and Mother split the extra cost to have Nanné go, too (since she doesn’t have quite high enough scores to get the complete cost of her classes and daily transport to and from school to home – which is several klicks out across Theed from the university’s grounds – covered by scholarship, as it the case with Gwené), because they know Nanné will make a good chaperone for her cousin and believe that she wants to go badly enough that they can count on her to steer Gwené away from any potentially bad matches and inform them if Gwené has seemed to capture the eye and fancy of someone who’d make a good match for her; however, while it’s true enough that she will gladly chaperone and keep Gwené away from all the ne’er do wells and laze-abouts, she only pretends to be willing to help make her cousin (and, incidentally, herself) a good match, instead focusing as much as possible on her own chosen course of study (to become either a credentialed Minder or the next best thing, known on Naboo as a soul-healer) and encouraging Gwené to pursue her passion (politics) just as far as it can take her.

 **04.) Ally:** She can tell, when the city starts to foment about the scandals surrounding King Veruna, that the man’s days as monarch are numbered, and that (barring some kind of disaster) the charismatic young Princess of Theed is going to succeed him on the throne, so she starts quietly encouraging Gwené to consider supporting the young Princess (who’s not much more than a year older than Gwené and less than a month younger than Nanné) and to think about how much good she could do for the people, as a political ally of the future Queen of Naboo.

 **05.) Opportunity:** The idea of handmaidens hadn’t ever really specifically crossed her mind, but she can’t say she’s all that surprised, either, when the practice of training chosen companions for the monarch is resurrected, and, while the dangers traditionally associated with such a post leave her feeling a bit cold, she knows that the opportunity is far too good for Gwené to pass up, and so (even though she thinks her face is longer than Padmé Amidala’s and knows that her hair is naturally darker and straight and that her nose turns up and believes that she’s not nearly pretty enough to ever really be mistaken for the new Queen) she makes a bit of a show out of declaring her interest in submitting an application, so that Gwené won’t be kept from pursuing this opportunity by her fears.

 **06.) Court:** Mother, surprisingly enough, takes it all in stride, even encouraging her and Gwené in their wish to become handmaidens (for, as she so delicately puts it, becoming handmaidens will place them at the heart of the royal court and permit them to make alliances they might never have been able to even dream of making, otherwise) and fighting Auntie Lucidé for them when it looks as if she might exercise her right to refuse to allow Gwené to apply (since she’s technically still an underage minor, as she hasn’t yet taken part in a ritual coming of age, such festivities having been planned for her for the coming spring/summer rites).

 **07.) Excuse:** When word comes that Gwené has been accepted as one of the last members of the first full training class of potential handmaidens and Nanné has only been accepted into the second such class of ten, she’s afraid that Mother or Lucidé might use this as an excuse to keep one or the other or both of them from going, but Auntie’s too busy crowing about how much better her daughter must’ve done at the interviews and the testing to get an offer for the first class and Belluna merely waits until they’re alone to cock an elegant eyebrow at her and note that her chances to actually lead the class she has been accepted into will be much higher than Gwené’s, since Gwené is going to be lost amongst the ranks of the Queen’s close friends, political allies, and those who were deliberately pursued and recruited for the position of handmaiden, whereas Nanné will be in a class formed entirely (save for perhaps one minor exception) of those who’ve volunteered for the privilege of serving and been chosen out of a greater pool of applicants for the job, and that she therefore fully expects Nanné both to have opportunities to shine and to advance herself that Gwené simply won’t be permitted among the elite ranks of her class and to make the very best of those opportunities.

 **08.) Coterie:** She hates to be separated from Gwené during their training, but she thinks Mother is wrong and that Gwené will impress all of those noble-born girls and the friends who have access to the Queen’s ears and heart and so make a place for herself high among the ranks of the forming handmaiden coterie that she might not be able to aspire to, from a position in the second training class, and so she spends her time reassuring Gwené about what an adventure it will be and how for once she’ll be blazing a path for Nanné to follow, encouraging her to work hard and advance as far as she can, and promising to do the same and to gather intel on the other girls and make alliances among the second class so that they can join ranks and consolidate power and be a force to be reckoned with, when Nanné’s training is done and the two classes combine to begin their active duty to the Queen.

 **09.) Correspondence:** Because Nanné has been offered a place in the second class and accepted that position, Gwené receives special permission to write to Nanné once a week about their training (so long as she makes no mention as to where that training is actually taking place) and to receive correspondence from Nanné two times a week, and so Nanné is able to get a head start on building up her physical endurance (never a particularly strong suit of hers, though she does enjoy dancing and swimming) and also to start getting together some ideas for an internal method of monitoring and taking care of the mental/emotional health as well as the physical well-being of the handmaidens, so she’ll be able to present them as they deserve to be, when called upon to do her own special projects during her own training.

 **10.) Innocuous:** She likes the girls in her training class well enough (with the exception of that one blue-eyed girl who tries far too hard to seem innocuous and gives her an unclean feeling, whenever she looks at Nanné for all that very long), but not enough to want to permanently partner with any of them, and so she quietly makes herself into a sort of shadow for Dané and Shelanné – the two girls who are the brightest and most charismatic and most like to the young Queen in spirit, out of all the class – instead, thereby establishing herself as the voice of reason, tempering and shaping and directing their passion and gradually guiding them towards a unification (of sorts) of the class behind them.

 **11.) Howl:** There’s something clearly not right with Essé – the girl makes every single natural healer’s instinct and all of her meticulously cultivated Minder’s reflexes howl over the sense of **wrongness** surrounding that girl – but somehow she got Captain Panaka’s blessing and special approval to enter the program, not to mention his continuing support, and, unfortunately, there’s nothing anyone can do to get her out of the handmaiden program unless she’s actually irrefutably caught at some kind of obviously ill-intentioned mischief, and so Nanné finds herself immensely glad that Gwené isn’t in this class and doesn’t have to try to deal with the girl, like she is (rather reluctantly and distastefully) being forced to do. 

**12.) Practical:** They’re able to finish their full month of training on Varykino, despite the growing threat posed by the increasing (and obviously unnatural) belligerence of the Trade Federation, but it’s a not very well kept secret that they’re going to be expected to start active duty immediately, upon their recall to the Palace, instead of being allowed another month’s worth of time for some additional practical experience and settling in before assuming fully active status, and that the members of the third class of handmaiden trainees aren’t going to be given any more than a week’s worth of testing on Varykino before being called to the Palace and put to work, too, and the growing feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach warns her that she needs to be ready for something very bad to happen, so she sends to Mother and Auntie Lucidé about getting their families out of Theed and into a safe house in the country somewhere . . . and then she **keeps** sending word about it until they finally believe that the threat is real enough and do what she’s been trying to get them to do off and on for the past four weeks and start packing.

 **13.) Concentrate:** If a crisis is sufficiently small for her to keep her shields up enough to maintain her focus, she can become a sort of force of nature, healing on the run and alternately soothing and chivying others along into doing whatever the right thing or the necessary thing might be, to make sure that whatever’s trying to fall to pieces around them ends up coming out alright, instead; she has to have Gwené near her, though, to concentrate on, after the Trade Federation and their droid armies invade, because otherwise there’s just too much pain and confusion and fear and anger pressing in on her from all sides and her shields and focus all crumble to the point of almost helplessness.

 **14.) Sideways:** She alternates between being fiercely proud of and completely terrified for her cousin, as Gwené transforms into a full-fledged adult and leader of free Nabooians right before her eyes, and it is the latter that makes her ignore an order to retreat and stay behind to help cover Gwené and get close enough to her that she can catch her when Gwené reaches out to her and carry her the rest of the way out to safety, when one of their missions finally go sideways.

 **15.) Duty:** She has no desire whatsoever to be parted from her cousin; thankfully enough, the number of traitors and turncoats amongst the ranks of the handmaidens who’d been singled out earlier on by her and by other observant trainees and/or Sabé as being . . . problematic in some way is not only enough to make Amidala overrule Panaka’s as the final say and assign a final veto power on the acceptance of any handmaiden hopefuls into the new training classes to Sabé and/or Dormé (her special protégée and apparent heir, since it looks like Sabé is going to be made the interim Senator and therefore relocating to Coruscant, at least for a little while), but to assign Nanné to permanent duty on Varykino, too (where Gwené has accepted a post as an instructor, given the severity of the wounds she took during the Trade Federation’s occupation of the planet), as a soul-healer and unofficial Minder for the trainees, a post that she is quite happily content to fill . . . and in which she will give excellent service for the next seven years, two months, three weeks, and single day remaining in her life, until the knife of a traitor she and her cousin have caught out manages to treacherously cut her life short by striking her from behind.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Clarification Note:** One of the reasons why my AU **Star Wars** series _**You Became to Me**_ is so entirely not even nearly complete has to do with the fact that I really started writing at the wrong end of the prequel trilogy for an AU (in my defense, though, when I started what became my _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ trio, which is over a million words long, I thought I was doing a sort of one-shot fix-it based on an idea I got for "fixing" RotS by changing something that happens very near the end of James Luceno's EU novel _Labyrinth of Evil_ , which is set immediately prior to RotS). One of these days, I fully intend to rectify that problem by going back and starting from the beginning, with an AU rewrite of TPM, which is why I took the time to do a character study sketch for a supporting character like Nanné. She'll be showing up again, in a more prominent role, whenever I get around to that AU rewrite of TPM. Folks might want to keep that in mind when reading this, since technically this is spoilerish for an AU novel that I haven't gotten around to writing yet!


End file.
